January. Vereshchagin explains his controversial art in a talk given before the opening of his exhibition in Budapest. The political ideas expressed shocked Stasov, who called the lecture ‘the pinnacle of confusion, nonsense and stupidity’ [верх бестолковости, нелепости и глупости]. The speech was published as a supplement to the catalogue of Vereshchagin’s exhibition in New York in 1891 under the title 'Realism' and republished in an abridged form in Russia in the same year.

May. Vereshchagin published an article entitled ‘Du progrès dans l’art’ in Nouvelle Revue.